Aerojet: Sacramento

Aerojet moved its test operations from Southern California to Sacramento in 1952. Purchasing approximately 13,000 acres of gold-dredged land, 25 miles east of the state capital, Aerojet operated the largest rocket test facility in the free world. It was during the Space Race in the 1950s and 1960s that Aerojet’s more than 20,000 Sacramento employees worked around the clock to design, build and test the rocket engines that would propel the Titan, Delta, Polaris, Apollo and Gemini vehicles and the Space Shuttle.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Aerojet Sacramento expanded its business into national defense, becoming an early participant in President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.

After investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Aerojet’s Sacramento facility was designated a federal Superfund site in 1983.

For more than 20 years, Aerojet environmental engineers have worked aggressively to develop remediation processes to effectively and safely clean soil and groundwater. Aerojet-led research and pilot studies have yielded several treatment methods for treating contaminated groundwater, including biological and ion exchange.

Today, with its innovative technologies, Aerojet is pumping and treating millions of gallons of water daily at its Sacramento site.